Smoke is the best play I have seen at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival, a black, edgy, brilliantly acted and directed drama which thrills from start to finish. Let’s hope that Rogue Machine will keep it running long after the Festival ends. Smoke, which was first done in New York in 2014, deals with the intense relationship between a contemporary young couple, Julie (Emily James) and John (Patrick Stafford), who meet in the back room of a Manhattan club where a sex party is in full swing. Although neither of them seems keen on taking part in the party, sex is an obvious sub-text to everything they say to each other, in between puffing on forbidden cigarettes and answering phone calls. As they spar verbally, looking to see who will dominate the other, their histories are revealed. John, we learn, is a wanna-be artist working as an intern for a famous photographer who, as coincidence has it, is Julie’s father. Julie, a college dropout, makes it clear how much she hates her father, a notorious womanizer. A rebel and a free soul, Julie delights in needling and provoking John, even as her body language reveals her desire for him. Julie’s complicated character is sketched masterfully by James, a gifted young actress (just one year out of university!) whose every word and gesture illuminate the text, make it come alive. Above all, James is able to capture Julie’s quirky need for danger, her willingness to flirt with death. Stafford might not be as charismatic as James, but he is certainly able to hold the stage with her, create a character in the grip of suppressed, ferocious emotions. One minute he shows a warm, caring side; the next he’s threatening to hurt her, even kill her. Smoke investigates the dark and light sides of sexuality, the mixture of pain and pleasure which saturates so many relationships today. Playwright Davies is fearless in the way she looks at the subject of sadomasochism, makes a compelling, exciting drama out of it.
